Rule would allow fish breeding in Delaware River section

The Delaware River near Morrisville, Pa.: Could water quality see further gains under a DRBC proposal to boost fish populations?

KIMBERLY PAYNTER/WHYY
The Delaware River near Morrisville, Pa.: Could water quality see further gains under a DRBC proposal to boost fish populations?
Jon Hurdle reports for StateImpact:
Water quality in the Delaware River estuary has improved over the last few decades to the point where regulators are considering adding the breeding of fish to a list of designated “uses” for that section of the river.
The Delaware River Basin Commission will hold a public hearing on April 6 to discuss its proposal to include fish propagation in the official uses of a 38-mile tidal stretch of the river between Philadelphia and Trenton.
The river’s current uses, as defined by the commission in 1967, are limited to the “maintenance” or survival of resident fish, and the passage of migratory fish, both reflecting the low levels of dissolved oxygen and a heavy load of pollution that characterized the river in past decades.
Since then, pollution has declined from industry, sewers, and so-called non-point sources such as lawn runoff, allowing oxygen levels to rise, and helping fish populations recover.
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FBI corruption probe in Pa, had many more targets


The Associated Press reports:

Fresh revelations show how federal authorities tried to use disgraced former state Treasurer Rob McCord to implicate others in a broad pay-to-play investigation of Pennsylvania government, but it leaves the question of whether the FBI probe is effectively finished.

Full story here

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Pa. OKs semiautomatic rifles for small game hunting


John Hayes reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

A surprise decision last week by the Pennsylvania Game Commission will lead to new sights and sounds on the state’s hunting grounds this year.

Commissioners abruptly reversed their preliminary vote in January to permit the use of semiautomatic rifles for general hunting uses, amending the measure to ban the sporting arms for big game but permit their use for small game and furbearers, such as foxes and coyotes.


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Reporters talking Jersey politics at a most appropriate spot

The Record‘s State House reporter Dustin Racioppi and political columnist Charlie Stile get together over coffee to talk about the upcoming New Jersey governor’s race.

Their chat takes place, of course, at a Jersey diner.

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Judge cancels $4M fracking award to Dimock, Pa. families

Dimock resident Scott Ely at a protest in 2012. A judge overturned a jury award for him and other Dimock plaintiffs.

Dimock resident Scott Ely at a protest in 2012.  Photo credit: Susan Phillips -StateImpact

Jon Hurdle and Susan Phillips report for StateImpact:

A federal judge on Friday struck down a jury’s award of
more than $4 million to two Pennsylvania families who claimed their well water was contaminated by gas drilling, saying the award bore little or no relationship to the evidence presented at the 2016 trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson of the Middle District
of Pennsylvania ordered a new trial of the case brought by the families in Dimock, led by Scott Ely, who said at the original trial that their water had been contaminated since 2008.
The verdict in March of 2016 was hailed as a major victory
by critics of the gas industry, who argued that the rural community of Dimock was a poster child for the hazards of shale gas development.
But the judge, in a 58-page opinion released late Friday, reversed the award of $4.24 million against Cabot Oil & Gas which the jury determined had been negligent in its extraction of natural gas in the community.
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He may be the most anti-Trump politician in New York

Aaron Elstein writes for Crain’s:
There’s an undeclared competition underway between New York’s top elected leaders: Who is the most anti-Trump? And the city comptroller is firmly in the lead.
So far this month, Mayor Bill de Blasio has issued 70 press releases, seven of which criticized Donald Trump’s policies, according to his office’s website. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office has put out 176 March press releases, only five of which expressly mention the president. Ten of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s 49 press releases assail the president or his administration.
Which brings us to Comptroller Scott Stringer, who has slammed Trump in 50% of his press releases issued this month. While that’s only 14 releases, Stringer has criticized the president in three of the last four, and the steady stream of criticism could help raise his profile should he run for mayor in a city where 80% of voters backed Hillary Clinton.
In Thursday’s salvo, Stringer took Trump’s tax policies to task. He said if the president’s tax plan is adopted by Congress, 40% of all single parents in the city would see their taxes go up while 90% of millionaires would get a decrease. That said, Trump’s tax plans appear to be in flux and Stringer staffers acknowledged in the report’s footnotes they had analyzed a plan accessed from the Trump campaign website that has since been taken down.
Stringer has criticized the president more frequently since the attempted Obamacare repeal fell apart and polls showed Trump’s popularity sliding into the Mariana Trench.
On Wednesday, Stringer warned that amid “anti-immigration messages and policies from the White House,” employers with city contracts must not underpay immigrant workers. On Tuesday, he called the president’s signing of an executive order to roll back environmental safeguards “backwards and wrong.” That statement broke 19 days of silence about Trump. Stringer evidently rested up after criticizing the president on March 9 for threatening to eliminate funding for the arts.
As comptroller, Stringer’s actual job is to monitor city spending and serve as a trustee to the municipal employee pension plans. That means his platform to criticize Trump is smaller than the governor’s, mayor’s or the attorney general’s. But he is clearly trying to make the most of the space he’s got.
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